Body measurements and rowing

[3rdRowFromBack]

Okay, just to share my personal data up front: Height: 173 cm Arm span: 170.5 cm Leg length (crotch to floor): 80.5 cm

And to note what I, very much a newbie w/r/t rowing, use as my reference for proper stroke technique: The C2 Australia YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ82RYIFLN8

The above is all preface to the discussion that follows.

Having wandered about the forum a fair bit before registering, I’ve noticed not infrequent questions/discussions about topics like body measurements and rowing ability/efficiency, height as an advantage for rowing, “optimal” stroke rate as a function of height, drive length optimization (or whether there is such a thing), and more. I’m sure you all know the sorts of things I’m referring to.

Let my present a synopsis of what I think I might have learned from reading the various discussions, wandering a bit on the web looking for more info, etc.

Ability in rowing, like in most sports, is determined by a host of factors. Some of those are quite variable, even within an individual, such as amount, intensity, and types of training/practice. Some vary widely between individuals but within a given specimen are fairly firmly fixed, examples being height, lung volume, and limb length. Yet others are quite variable between individuals but only moderately so within the individual—perhaps the prime example being maximal oxygen uptake, or VO2max. In rowing, muscle mass, and in particular leg/hip/back muscle mass, is another (rather obvious) determinant. I wish to focus on some parameters that, for a given individual, are essentially fixed: height, limb length, and ratios thereof.

It’s well known that rowing coaches looking for new team members favor taller individuals over shorter ones. It’s generally said that tall rowers have mechanical advantages (yes, there’s a bit of a pun there) over short rowers, making for greater efficiency of effort, and also tend to have more muscle, by dint of sheer size, thus being able to generate more force to move a boat through the water, or, in the case of the RowErg, to more forcibly rotate the flywheel.

There’s also lots of discussion of stroke rate. Of interest to me regarding these discussions is that fairly often, rower height and/or height/arm span ratios are not taken much into account. It seems that many think that stroke rate optimization for a given athlete is independent of body measurements. I’m not persuaded that such is the case—more on this later.

More or less the same could be said of drive length. (I would prefer the term stroke length, I think, but that’s of course a mere parenthetical, given that standard usage dictates otherwise.) Again, though, it seems to me that body measurements, combined with optimal technique (see above for my reference point on that), would produce a fairly narrow range for best drive length for a given rower, at least for given types of events, recognizing that sprints are inherently different than marathons, etc.

I’ll pause here for a moment—I’m already a bit long for an initial post—and invite others to comment, looking forward to learning a bit more about the biomechanics of rowing and how they determine efficiency, style, and more.

[Dangerscouse]

Welcome to the forum and this is a very erudite first post. Clearly you've given this a lot of thought, and I found it very interesting to read.

I have to admit that I have always just accepted drive / stroke length as being what it is, and I've never considered the potential for an optimal length. My drive length is usually circa 1:50/52 for r18-22 and 1:39/42 for 28+ (I don't tend to row between r23-27 for some reason), so I'd be interested to know if this is more, or less, than could conceivably be optimal.

As for stroke rate, I have always found r28-30 very natural, and in the past few years I have managed to master r18-22. I do find that r32-34 is a tipping point for me and I struggle to maintain for a prolonged period of time, something that I have always assumed was due to a lack of fitness, relatively speaking. R35+ feels unnatural for me, and not really like I'm rowing: more of a thrash backwards and forwards.

As for your other assumptions / conclusions I fully agree and they are all part of the biological / physiological soup that determines your potential performance. The only other facet I'd add to your post is the mental aspect of training. I'm a very big advocate of building 'mental calluses' as your mind can be your biggest enemy and supporter all in the same session. So many variables can be predicated on just accepting the stress, and believing that you're capable of more.

[KeithT]

Glad Stu brought up the mental part as I was going to. There is a lot of data/science around ideals for the body type and the effectiveness of using the body you have. However, there are so many variable that just cant all be accounted for with it all, doesn't mean they are not important but it's all a learning process to find what works best for you. The mental side, doesn't always get the attention the physical side does but I have found it to be a huge factor - the ability or willingness to suffer and overcome mental barriers goes a long way to successful rowing.

[Wakefield_Guy]

Interesting, but difficult and super complex to get clear answers I suspect.
I’d suggest trying to get stroke rate / length / weight and height data from some of the WR holders in various 18-45 (say) HWT and LWT age cats to start with.
Guy

[Carl Watts]

Made the suggestion that Concept 2 start gathering the sort of data your interested in years ago but nobody is interested.

What I was really only interested in when it all boils down is to compare myself to others with near identical stats and in that way you could get a true level of fitness and potential ability.

Height is obviously a huge advantage but many like to hide it. Like any sport there is an optimum build and if your also lucky to get a massive cardio system to support it then hey presto you have the potential to be an elite rower.

[max_ratcliffe]

Welcome to the forum.

I think a basic rule of thumb is that the smaller you are, the higher you need to rate, but as you point out, there are a huge number of variables.

For some reason, there appears to be some belief (elsewhere, not in your post) that taller rowers have some sort of unfair advantage. This is, of course, nonsense. It's no more unfair than the advantages conferred by body size or shape in any other sport. I would come out very badly if I erged against Eric Murray, but worse still if I found myself packing down against Brodie Retallick.

Talking of Eric Murray, I note that he and Hamish Bond have quite different styles at the finish, as shown here.



I don't know whether the oars were geared differently so that Bond's stroke (and I'm speculating that he had less peak power than Murray) was compensated by longer length? Either way, that's a lot of lay back that tires my abs out just looking at it!

[3rdRowFromBack]

Ah, dearest gentlefolk—

Thank you for the kind responses and warm welcomes. All much appreciated. Before I charge back in, let me digress for a moment and wail about one of the crueler affronts of life.

I sat down yesterday and read the responses, ending up quite pleased with things. I then devoted a considerable amount of time and effort to drafting another post of my own. There was some chin-scratching, a wee bit of maths, and a ramble or two about the internet. As a further digression, a nod (or should it be raised fist?) to/at the person who devised spell-check. This was of course in the midst of duties and events that some might think had a more proper claim to my attention, but remained nonetheless of obviously lesser importance.

It was perhaps a thought like this last that caused one of the gods to sit up on the silk-covered divan and take notice. A lesson, it was determined, was in order. And we know what happens when lessons from the gods are delivered. We mortals are 100% buggered.

Or maybe it was a bit of karma come due. But no matter—the result was the same.

Life descended upon me like an unexpectedly large wave upon a beach-goer. One moment, it’s all warm sunlight, cool water, the gentle, rhythmic lift of the small waves coursing about one’s midsection; the next, one is shoved aside and toppled, the bottom isn’t where it used to be, sunglasses are dangling in front of one’s nose, and the gin & tonic one had been so sweetly enjoying now tastes suspiciously like one of the less salubrious portions of the Gulf Stream, which is otherwise occupied with streaming down one’s face and filling one’s shorts with sand.

That is when I clicked the little ‘x’ in the corner of an open tab in my browser. As one can readily imagine, I had a fair number of tabs open, and for some reason I chose that moment to do a bit of clutter-clearing.

Virtually no effort is required to guess which tab I mistakenly closed. It was not the tab with the recipes for 5 Wonderful No-Cook Summer Salads. Nor was it the tab labeled “Winning PowerBall Numbers for August 15, 2020”, which had absolutely nothing about it to recommend its continued existence in my life. The tab bearing the email from our contractor saying the plumber was delivering more bad news remained, along with the message from our retirement fund manager. (Parenthetical: I’m asking about to see if a fund manager’s description of one’s retirement savings as “a daily ever more pathetic joke” is actionable, perhaps on grounds of libel.) Myriad others of various importance and utility remained. But not, alas, the tab in which one might have found the Concept2 Forum, and my nearly-complete masterwork of a post.

Okay, yes, ‘masterwork’ is stretching things a bit far, I agree. But when it comes to the psychology of the thing, the word conveys at least some small bit of the subsequent feeling of loss and despair. It was like slamming a car door on one’s hand, inflicting a self-injury resulting in an immediate eruption of screams and rude language, followed immediately by the realization that the pinkie finger of that hand has no doubt lost almost all of its use and even perhaps its continued existence. It’s only a pinkie finger, but, well, dammit all anyway.

Having now relived the trauma, I find that my coffee is now lacing a largish glass of scotch and that my motivation to continue on to something useful has been brutally trampled and dragged from the field of play. I’ll try to get it patched up and return later with something less whiny and disconsolate.

‘Til then, toodles.

[Mortie31]

I’m not sure tall rowers have an unfair advantage, as mentioned in an earlier post, but a quick google of some of the available (albeit limited) science seems to show they have an advantage I.e. a mechanical advantage. I cannot say whether these papers are credible or would stand up to peer review, but interesting, nevertheless. But does this have any relevance at all for anyone but the very elite, with perfect fitness, physique and technique? I’m sure some of you will be able to list short (under 6’) hwt Olympic rowers but they are certainly in the minority so success trends would tend to support the hypothesis that being tall does give some level of mechanical advantage/ performance advantage.

https://analytics.rowsandall.com/2018/1 ... wers-tall/
A quote from the above paper
When I looked at the data graphically, two things seemed quite clear.
There is definitely a relationship between height and 2k power. For men, this equates to 3.33W/cm of height gain, or about 1%. For Women, it is 1.25W/cm, or 0.6%.

http://bionics.seas.ucla.edu/education/ ... 998_01.pdf
A quote from the above paper.
Various attempts have been made to determine the relationship between body dimensions, muscle power and aerobic power. Theoretical analyses in general have suggested a relationship to the second power of standing height (Asmussen and Christensen, 1967), or the 2/3rd power of body mass (Secher, 1992), but empirical observations over the period of growth have implied that aerobic power increases approximately as a cubic function of stature (Shephard et al., 1980). Whether the relationship is quadratic or cubic, it is an advantage for the rower to be tall. Long arms are particularly helpful in giving extra leverage (Stein et al., 1983). Ideally, the body mass should contain a high proportion of muscle; Russo et al. (1992)

[max_ratcliffe]

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Having now relived the trauma, I find that my coffee is now lacing a largish glass of scotch and that my motivation to continue on to something useful has been brutally trampled and dragged from the field of play. I’ll try to get it patched up and return later with something less whiny and disconsolate.
<>

Beautifully put. We've all been there.



Or in modern vernacular: d'oh!

[iain]

I haven't examined the subject much, but I heard that there was a successful crew at Henley that were shorter than would normally be the case who managed a much faster rating that compensated. This aside, a shorter rower than the rest of the crew is forced to start and finish their stroke with the rest and so the handle of the oar will travel slower. While this could be compensated by greater gearing, this is only likely to be available in advanced crews and therefore I imagine most suitable smaller rowers never make the upper ranks. I have always wondered whether shorter rowers could fully compensate with rating, especially on the erg, but suspect that the increased inefficiencies of accelerating their body more often would have an impact. However, as there is little cost of carrying more weight, I suspect that the reduced muscle would mean slower times.